Disclaimer: I do not own Xiaolin Showdown, unfortunately, because if I did this would be on tv and not on . Clay, Omi, Raimundo, Kimiko, Dojo, Chase, Jack, etc. . . . they are all characters that belong to Christy Hui.
Chapter 1 - Just Another Day. . . or is it?
I wake up to an annoying beeping and groggily slam my hand against the snooze button on my alarm clock. I hate mornings! I always have. My brother was the one who got up early and ate breakfast with the family, going to bed early like our parents wanted us to. I was the one who got up late in the morning and stayed up late at night, playing, but since my brother, Axel, moved in with Aunt Kim in London and our father left for Hong Kong, I've been forced to wake up early and eat breakfast with Mother or else have her go crazy with feelings of unworth. I slowly get out of my king sized bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I slip out of my black silk pajamas that have the red dragon design running along the right side to the middle of the back and put on my normal red Frankenstein tanktop and black jeans. I comb my fingers through my hair once as I make my way to the kitchen, already able to smell the bacon and hash browns. I walk down the sunlit hallways, unusually grumpy for it being a Saturday. As I walk by, I tilt pictures that are hanging along the wall just slightly so they look funny, knowing full well that the maids would fix them later, but still feeling a little comforted that the perfect scenery was corrupted by my evil genius-ness. I walk through the dining room and sit on a stool to the bar that slightly seperates the dining room from the huge kitchen. Mother places my breakfast in front of me with one hand as she places her plate in the place in front of mine, smiling all the while. She slips off the lime green oven mitts she always wears while cooking and takes off her matching lime green apron, hanging it on the hook in the wall by the large refridgerator before she sits down to her food. I watch her sit down before taking the first bite. "So how is it dear," Mother asks, her eyes curious.
"It's fine, Mom. It always is," I reply as I nibble on my crust.
Mother giggles and begins eating her food. We sit in silence while we eat, the only sound being the forks scraping against the porcelain plates. I sigh and silently count down in my head. "Three. . . Two. . . One. . ."
"So, Jack. When are you going to invite your friends over for a sleep over?"
"Mom. I told you before. My friends don't want to come over. We spend enough time together when we hang out every other day," I explain, exasperated. I mean, seriously. How am I supposed to tell her that they can't because we're enemies and that they beat me up every time we meet. And I can't tell her that I don't have any friends because then she'll ask Axel to come back into the house and Lord knows I don't want that! "But Jack. Honestly! You are always so alone since Axel moved out and it'd be nice to meet your friends. I at least deserve to know the kids you hang around with! What if they're just hanging out with you for your money? I don't want those kind of people hanging around my Jacky-poo," Mother said while standing up and picking up our dishes. Ignoring me roll my eyes at her nickname, she continues, "I just want what's best for you because I love you."
I stand up, sighing, and walk around the bar into the kitchen. I flinch at the coldness of the kitchen tile on my bare feet as I walk to my mother and give her a hug from the back. "I know, Mom. But I know my friends and trust me, they're not in it for the money."
Mother sighs in that motherly way and pats my head. I roll my eyes and smile, breaking away from the hug. I go upstairs and re-tilt the pictures in the hallway as I pass. Once in my room, I put on my socks and shoes and gel my hair back. Mother always fusses at the way I style my hair, but just lets me do whatever I want with it since it's my hair and I can 'ruin my precious locks of wine colored hair with the devil's evil paste' if I wanted to. I place my favorite pair of goggles around my neck as I grab my jacket and helipack and head to the basement aka my secret lair to fix up a few of my Jack-bots the Xiaolin Losers destroyed and maybe work on upgrading a few of them. Upon entering, though, Wuya, who I've made live in the basement since there was no way I could explain her to my mom, gets in my face. "A new Shen Gong Wu revealed itself ten minutes ago! Where were you," She demanded.
"Pssh! I was eating! Sorry not all of us are ghosts that can go without food," I grumble as I pull on my jacket and helipack while signalling two of my new models of Jack-bots to come to me. "I want you to meet me outside by the gate on the North side. Got it?"
Jack-bot 013 and Jack-bot 014 beeped and go through the secret door I personally built to outside with Wuya following them. I run from the basement to the front door, which takes quite a while considering my house is huge, and hurriedly explain, "Going out. Friends," leaving my mom sitting confused on the couch of the living room as she hears the front door slam. I run down the unbelievably long drive-way and turn left to the North side of the gate surrounding the mansion. Both Jack-bots beep in greeting as we fly off with Wuya right beside me.
"It'll be found in Washington," Wuya explains as we gain speed.
"Can you be a little bit more specific, Wuya?"
"Whiskey Dick Mountain."1 I try to keep a straight face, but can't contain the laughter. I laugh so hard I begin to tear up. "Wha-what? Haha! I wonder what we'll find there? Haha! What will the Shen Gong Wu look like?"
Wuya sighs and shakes her head. "Just keep flying you idiot!"
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~*~Meanwhile in the dojo~*~
"SHRIEK!"
Clay, Raimundo, Omi, and Master Fung all rushed to Kimiko's room, worried that an evil villain will be hurting their Dragon Warrior of Fire. They get to Kimiko's room, but find her fine, sitting on her bed. They all relax their fighting poses. Raimundo sighs. "Geez Kimiko! What's wrong with you? We were worried something had happened!"
Kimiko looks at them with wide, excited eyes. "I'm sorry, guys. But I have great news! My penpal, Axel, is visiting the dojo today!"
Omi's face lights up. "Ooo! Will your friend of the pen be staying long in our temple?"
Master Fung looks at Kimiko and sighs. "He will be welcome in the temple for as long as he wants, but I fear he will have to sleep in the dining room on an extra futon since we are out of rooms."
"Why the dining room, Master Fung? Why, he can bunk with me in my room. There's enough room for two futons and I sure don't mind the company," Clay offers, his southern drawl friendly. Master Fung nods. "Yes. You're right. We should let him feel welcome when he comes."
The Dragons and Master Fung head to the dining room to eat breakfast and while they eat, they discuss their soon to be guest. Kimiko blabs on and on about all the things they've talked about and about how she already explained to him what Shen Gong Wu were and this and that. Omi just stared, wide-eyed in amazement. Soon, Dojo comes in the kitchen with a young man trailing behind him. This young man is about the age of 15 and has layered, soft black hair that sort of frames his face which makes his red eyes stand out. The boy's smile is soft, but has a hint of mischief in it which reminds the Dragon's of someone, but the can't rememeber who. Dress in a maroon colored hoody and baggy black pants, the boy puts his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. The boy looks up slightly and the light catches a black stud in his left ear. "I found this kid outside the dojo and he said he was visiting Kimiko," Dojo says as he gestures the boy to step forward. Kimiko jumps up from the table and heads over to the boy and holds out her hand. "Hi Axel! I'm Kimiko!"
Axel shakes Kimiko's hand and says in a silky, slightly British accent. "Hi Kimiko. It's nice to finally meet you."
Kimiko blushes and drags the boy over to the table with her group of friends. "Ok Axel. This is Clay, Raimundo, and Omi. They're my friends I told you about!"
Axel shakes their hands and they all talk for a while, trying to get to know eachother. Kimiko glances at the boy and suddenly remembers something. "Hey Axel! Didn't you say you had a twin brother who lives around here? What's he like?"
Axel laughs and shakes his head. "Well. He's great! He gets flustered way too easily and always tries to make himself seem bigger. He loves working with mechanics and is a fantastic guitar player even though he doesn't want to admit it."
"Wow. Sounds like you really love your brother," Raimundo laughs as he remembers his brothers. "Whenever I think of my brothers, I only come up of ways I can embarrass them, not compliment them."
Axel looks up at the ceiling in thought. "Well, Jack does have embarrassing moments from childhood I remember."
"Please tell us these shameful things about your sibling, Axel," Omi pleads, his hands together as if in prayer.
Laughing, Axel looks at him and rubs his bald head. "Ok, ok. Well, when we were younger, we'd always end fighting and wresting eachother. I always won. Well one day, we were fighting like normal and I won the upper hand. Haha Jack didn't want to admit defeat so he bit me. . . Hahaha in this space between my neck and my shoulder," Axel explains, pointing to the place he's talking about. "Seeing at how it affected me, he began doing that in all our fights and now he always wins. I guess you can say that it's something embarrassing about me, but his face when he discovered that it worked was priceless."
Clay, Raimundo, and Kimiko laugh, feeling slightly bad about the boy they don't even know whom they're laughing at. "Oh and that's not even the worst one! I guess the worst one would have to be his teddy bear."
Raimundo blushes a little at the thought that of a teddy bear, his own laying on his futon as they speak. Clay, Kimiko, and Omi all lean in closer to hear what Axel is about to say.
"Haha You know how I said Jack loves working with mechanics? Well when we were eight, I gave Jack a stuffed panda bear. Jack I guess was lonely at night, so he modified the teddy bear to walk and talk. He named it Dimitri. When we were nine and I was moving to London, he gave me Dimitri and told me to just change the batteries when Dimitri stopped moving."
"Do you still have Dimitri," asks Kimiko, curiously.
Axel reachs into the duffelbag he brought with him and pulls out a panda bear with shiny, black eyes and soft, but old fur. Axel pulls batteries out of his pocket and puts them in a little crease along Dimitri's neck. The Dragon's hold their breath for something to happen and jump when suddenly, Dimitri begins talking. "Axeeel! Why did you take my batteries out! You're supposed to be good to me! Jack said so," Dimitri says as he stands up and looks up at the boy smiling down at him. Kimiko squeals and jumps up and down. "He's so cuuute!"
Dojo quickly slithers in the room, interrupting what Omi's about to say. "Guys, I new Shen Gong Wu has revealed itself! We must go!"
Omi, Raimundo, and Clay run out of the dojo and climb onto Dojo's back. Kimiko smiles. "Come with us, Axel! It's be so fun! We have to show you what a Xiaolin Showdown looks like while you're here visiting!"
Axel nods and grabs Dimitri, putting him in his hoody pocket. Dimitri screams and thrashes about, wanting to get out. "Let me out, let me out! I'm going to tell Jack you were being mean to me!"
Axel and Kimiko climb on Dojo and they start lifting up into the sky. Omi, Clay, Raimundo, and Kimiko smile and nod as Axel chats excitedly about how high up in the air they are and what rock formations they see when finally they land in a small clearing in Washington where a water source is to their right, beside a canyon. The Dragons jump off Dojo and go in search of the Shen Gong Wu, the Intoxicated Jackrabbit's Goblet.2 Axel soon gets tired of searching and sits down on a large rock by the water and lets Dimitri out of his pocket to wander around.
We land on the mountain with no difficulty, but we soon realize that we have a lot of ground to cover to search for the Shen Gong Wu. I take my jacket off and hand it to Jack-bot 014 to store in his chest and we get to work on searching for the Wu. Wuya doesn't help search, oh no. She has to come and nag me for not searching hard enough. I'm finally about to tell her to shut up when I slip on a rock and slide down to a little pond/lake thingy by a canyon. I shake my head and try to get the world to stop spinning when I get tackled to the ground by something small.
"Jack! I've missed you so much! I can't believe you're here!"
I sit up and pull the small thing away from me so I can inspect it. I see the round paws and the fluffy ears and blink in surprise. "Dimitri?"
Dimitri shrieks and hugs me again. The Xiaolin Losers, I guess hearing Dimitri scream, jumped in front of me. That girl, Kimiko I think it was, glared at me as she looked at my hand that was holding Dimitri's back. "What are you doing with him, Jack?"
I stare at the girl incrediously. "How do you know him," I ask as I look down at Dimitri, who's hugging my shirt tightly in his furry grisp. "Jack? What are you doing out here?"
I turn towards the oh-so-familiar voice and groan. "Axel? The question is, what are you doing here?"
The Dragon's look from Axel to me and from me to Axel. Kimiko turns to Axel and tilts her head a little. "Ok, wait! Do you know him, Axel?"
Axel chuckles. "Of course I do! I'd know my brother anywhere!"
Omi and the rest of the Xiaolin Warriors stare at Axel and then to me. I try to smile, but feel as if I'm grimacing. Why must Axel be here? Kimiko shakes her head and looks over at me. "So you," and then she looks at Axel, " and you are brothers?"
I stand up and dust dirt off of me as I say, "Yeah, unfortunately."
Axel walks over to me and slings his arm around my shoulders. "Aw. Don't be that way!"
I pull away from Axel and start walking up the little hill I'd fallen down. I feel a squeeze on my shirt as remember Dimitri's still clinging on to my shirt. I set Dimitri on the ground right when Axel reaches my side. He puts his hand on my head and made a face. "Jack! What did you do to your hair?"
I pull away from Axel once again and huff. "I gelled it."
Dimitri backs away and settles on a big rock, watching us. The Dragons stare, dumbstruck and sit down like Dimitri. "Why would you do such an aweful thing to your hair? It's so soft without all that gunk in it!"
I roll my eyes. "And what about you? What did you do to your hair, huh? Nothing's wrong with being a redhead, Axel," I say as I get in his face.
Axel huffs as he gets in my face. "What about those tattoos under your eyes? I mean seriously, tattoos?"
That's the last straw. I punch Axel in the face and in retaliation, he tackles me to the ground. It's almost as if we're back to being eight years old again and arguing about a toy we both want to play with. We roll around, both trying to get the upper hand in the fight. Axel rolls us over to the pond and dunks my head under the water, making sure to scrub so he can try to get the gel out of my hair. I thrash about, trying to get away. I slip on a rock in the water and fall down, accidently kicking Axel's legs out from under him. He falls on top of me and, while still scrubbing at my hair, pulls himself up. I grab his hair and yank, earning an angry grunt. Feeling satisfied that my hair is clean, Axel lets go of my hair and turns around to walk out of the pond. Angry, I launch myself at him, knocking us both down again and again we roll around in the water. It's when Axel pushed me again the shore of the lake that I saw it shine. The Shen Gong Wu is a goblet with a design of a jackrabbit on the exterior of the cup and it washed up on shore when Axel and I were fighting. I reach out to grab it and as I touch the rim of the cup, Kimiko and Chase Young who showed up last minute grab the goblet. Chase Young smirks and says, "I challenge you to a Xiaolin Showdown. The Xiaolin Warriors' Changing Chopsticks, Jack Spicer's Monkey Staff, and my Fist of Tebigong. Whoever makes it to the top of the mountain wins."
There's a flash of light and the mountain grows larger and boulders and rocks begin to shake loose, falling towards us. I'm too distracted trying to keep my hair out of my face with my goggles when the Showdown begins. I quickly use my Monkey Staff and start using my new monkey agility to avoid getting hit by the boulders. Chase uses his Fist of Tebigong to crush the boulders that come near him and he passes me. I squint my eyes and push forward, letting out a monkey roar. A huge group of boulders and rocks unlodge and come at the three all at once. I jump over one boulder just to be knocked back by another one right behind it. I can faintly hear Wuya in the background screaming at me. I roll my eyes and run to catch up again. Chase and Kimiko are head to head and Kimiko reachs out to grab the goblet, but a rock suddenly unlodges and hits her in the shoulder. Taking the moment as an advantage, Chase Young snatches the Shen Gong Wu. There's another flash of light and I'm back on the shore of the lake. Axel comes up and holds his hand out to me, which I take graciously. I just lost my favorite Shen Gong Wu! There's no time to be angry at Axel. I take my goggles off and run my hands through my hair with a sigh. I could say I couldn't see because my hair wasn't gelled back like it usually is during the Showdown, but it'll just be an excuse. Axel wraps his arm around my shoulder and smiles. "You were awesome out there! I never thought you'd be good in a Showdown!"
I rolled my eyes. "Gee, thanks."
"Spicer."
I look up, surprised to see Chase walking towards me. "Uh, yeah Chase," I asked. "You look different today. What did you do?"
I look down and realize I'm not wearing my jacket like I usually do. Chase must not've seen me in just my shirt before. I hold up a finger to Chase and walk over to my Jack-bots to get my jacket, unaware of Axel and Chase staring each other down.
"You must be related to Jack. You have his eyes."
Axel smirks. "I'm his twin brother."
Chase nods and just stares at Axel. Axel's smirk widens. "So you like Jack's hair?"
Chase seems surprised and looks over to me sitting patiently while being yelled at by Wuya and getting climbed on my Dimitri. He looks back and Axel and smirks himself. "It suits him."
Axel chuckles. "I keep telling him that, but he never listens. Maybe if someone else says it. . ."
Axel doesn't wait for a reply. He walks over to me, surprises me by giving me a quick hug, whispers for me to keep Dimitri, and flies off on Dojo with the Xiaolin Losers. I head over to Chase, pullin on my jacket and look up at him. "I'm sorry if my brother said anything weird," I apologized. I know Axel had to have said something to Chase because he looks as if he's thinking hard on something. Chase looks at me and steps closer. He looks down at me and leans in close. I hold my breath, afraid that I'd offend him in some way for him to suddenly want to bite my head off. He breathes on my ear and says in a low voice, " Your hair looks nice. You should leave it like that more often."
I touch my hair and frown as Chase stands straight and disappears. Wuya comes up behind me and nags me again for not winning the Shen Gong Wu. I ignore her as me, her, and my two Jack-bots fly back home. On the way home, I contemplate on what Chase said and suddenly my eyes grow large. Axel told him to tell me my hair looks good so I'd actually feel compelled to stop using gel. I just know he did . . . and I actually dont' mind. "Axel could change me into a whole new person if he got Chase to do that again for other things", I think to myself while blushing.
Footnotes: 1 Ok, so you thought it was funny right? lol Whiskey Dick Mountain is a hilarious name after all! It's an actual place too! haha right? I was surprised too! Just wanted to share that fun little fact =3 2 The Intoxicated Jackrabbit's Goblet is my creation. I told you I'd create some Shen Gong Wu and there you go. haha The Intoxicated Jackrabbit's Goblet is a Shen Gong Wu that allows the user to actually intoxicate their opponent. Not very inventive, I know, but I got the idea after reading Whiskey Dick Mountain haha I just had to!